Getting the right amount of calories into your human machinery is vital to getting the best out of your workouts, but few of us want to weigh and measure our food to get it right.
Here’s a quick method of working out how many calories are in different foods. It uses the USA cup method. If you’re from the UK or anywhere else outside the USA then you’ll need to know how many ml there are in a US cup measure.
How Big Is A Measuring Cup?
It’s easy, there are 240ml in a US cup, so just find a glass that’s closest to this size, using a measuring jug to test it. Once you have your 240ml US cup measure then you can get started. One of my drinking glasses takes exactly 250ml of water, so I just use this and fill almost to the top. Sorted.
And That Scoop?
When you’re taking protein or carb powders, the scoop that they put in the pack is usually 70ml.
Now, first of all, if you’re eating clean and eating often, you don’t need to worry too much about your exact split of protein to carbs to fats. As long as you’re somewhere around the 40%, 40%, 20% range then that’s fine.
If you’re reading this you probably already have a good idea of what’s clean food and roughly how much protein and carb things contain, so let’s jump right on in with the calories.
First of all, you’ll need to work out the number of calories that you need in a day using the Harris Benedict equation.
Now you’ve got that, you can start looking at making four to five meals a day, working around pouring your food into a US cup, rather than having to painstakingly measure and weigh everything out time and again.
Food |
Measure |
Calories |
| Brown Rice (uncooked) | 1 cup | 520 Calories |
| Milk (semi-skimmed) | 1 cup | 120 Calories |
| Crushed Mixed Nuts | 1 tablespoon | 50 Calories |
| Cottage Cheese | 1 cup | 200 Calories |
| Olive Oil | 1 tablespoon | 120 Calories |
| Teriyaki Sauce | 1 tablespoon | 45 Calories |
| Pasta Twists (wholemeal) | 1 cup | 95 Calories |
| Pure Maltodextrin Powder | 1 scoop | 190 Calories |
| Whey Protein Powder | 1 scoop | 100 Calories |
That makes a good start for planning your meals, and if you’re following the Insanity workout from Shaun T and Beach Body then you can definitely use this as a guide to counting your calorie intake.
Anything like tuna, that comes in a tin and you use in one hit, it’s far easier just take a look at the label and work it out on the fly.
Are there any other key staples that you’d like to be added to this list? Let me know and I’ll keep the list growing.
Get a good amount of carbs, protein, and healthy fats with each meal.
Part with the exercises purpose is to will give you methods to raise
your body’s metabolism. You will surely have unhealthy foods sometimes but be sure to
just have about 3 cheat meals a week.